


Behind the Scenes

by becca1heda



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: F/F, Non-Canon Relationship, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-30 07:08:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17219273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/becca1heda/pseuds/becca1heda
Summary: Our mysterious, ever-enigmatic Emily Prentiss has always been surrounded by an air of mysterious darkness, especially in her alluded-to past. I want to start off in her working past how I imagine it would've gone and take her through the years leading up to and including her infamous involvement with our favorite BAU team! ;) Will start off in original storyline for her past, but will eventually (hopefully) become an episode-by-episode breakdown of what was going on "Behind the Scenes" that wasn't put in the show about the BeAUtiful pairing that is Jemily.. X'D





	Behind the Scenes

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings, fellow nerds! This is my first fic, and out the ridiculously large number of fandoms I'm a member of and after all of the unhealthily extensive fanfiction I've read, I've chosen Criminal Minds and Jemily to be my first writing adventure, so wish me luck! I'm gonna need it! Also, all positive encouragement for me to keep it up is greatly appreciated and much desired! This is a Prentiss-focused/centered fic because she's my favorite, so with that in mind, we're not opening on cannon or present at all for a few chapters. I firmly believe that there is so much more to Prentiss' character that we never got to see or even hear about from her work before the BAU, and I'm VERY interested in tapping into that creative outlet, so here I go! Yall's responses determine how far this goes, so please let me know if you guys like it and want to read more! (Italicized font is Prentiss' thoughts.)

Darkness. That’s all she saw, eyes opened or closed, it didn’t matter. She tried several times to be sure, looking wildly around for some source of light- no matter how small. Was she asleep? Was she dead? Was this a crazy dream or suspension of reality? The brunette couldn’t feel that anything was covering her eyes, but went to reach for her face just to be sure.

  
  


Quickly she discovered she could not move her arms, and had to really think about where they even were, as for a terrifying moment she could not feel them at all. After jerking her body a bit to begin regaining feeling everywhere, she faintly heard rattling chains- realizing the extent of the compromising position she was now in: her wrists bound above her head and attached somehow to a ceiling she knew must be there, her bare feet on the cold concrete below with her knees bent slightly. Quickly trying to take as much of her body weight off her arms which she knew would soon be in a lot of pain, she stood up as strong as she could despite the numbness still in her limbs.

  
  


Feeling slowly trickled in from her limbs as she gradually woke up, the pain starting to register. Slow and dull at first and increasingly growing more and more pronounced. Mostly localized in her shoulders, wrists, and back- she suspected largely from the extraordinarily painful way that she had been strung up and left to hang unconscious. She tried to feel past the pain associated with her position to find if there were any other smaller hurts that could explain why she couldn’t remember anything: a head trauma, a sore needle mark perhaps. There were a plethora of options available to knock someone out, as she well knew. Her left cheekbone began registering a growing throbbing pain- meaning she’d likely been punched out: hard. She tested the restraints on her wrists well, tugging so hard that she began to feel blood run down her arms due to the biting, smooth edge of what felt like metal cuffs. Nothing budged, so she saw no point in purposefully injuring herself further by exercising more fruitless struggling.

  
  


What time was it? Was it day or night? No way to know anything for sure in this damn pitch black darkness. Maybe she was in a basement? If not, then a very isolated place to be sure, because she couldn’t hear a thing, no matter how hard she strained her ears- complete silence. It was actually more unnerving than if there’d been sound at all; she could hear every breath she took, every beat of her heart as if it were being broadcast on a loudspeaker. The effect was made rather unsettling by the complete darkness, and she had to make a concerted effort to slow her rapidly increasing heart rate by closing her eyes and making herself take slow, deep breaths. Her mind felt fuzzy when she tried to sort out what she last remembered. Her brow furrowed as she tried to concentrate on the last steps she took.

  
  


Feeling the brush of rough, foreign fabric against her breasts and the tops of her thighs she breathed a sigh of relief from a breath she didn’t even know she was holding. At least she was clothed, if sparsely. Things could indeed be far worse- as she well knew having seen hundreds of case files to prove her mental point. She didn’t want to risk saying anything aloud like calling out for help until she had a better grip on what had happened to get her here, if she was alone, and where the hell she even was.

  
  


_Concentrate, Prentiss, say your mantra, then you’ll remember. I’m FBI Agent Emily Prentiss. I’m 29 years old. I fluently speak 7 languages. I’m working with Interpol out of Lyon, France. I’m assigned to undercover-specialist team JTF-12. We were inserted into a prostitution/ human trafficking ring.. My assigned name is Katie Johnson, Sean's is Kevin Jones, Clyde's is Ken Jackson, Jeremy's is Kegan Jennings, Tsia's is Kiara James.. Tsia!_

  
  


With a sudden jerk that loudly rattles her chains above her she remembers everything in a flash. The disgusting grin on her pimp’s face when he knocked her out being the very last thing she remembers before waking up here.

  
  


_That’s right! Fucking Jacob had to go and call me out on my undercover gig, the fuck kind of agent does that?! The kind that procures prostitutes far from home, apparently.. And the kind that will lose his job the second I get out of this shit-hole if I have anything to say about it!_ ابن العاهرة سيموت موت مؤلم بطيء _! Я вырежу его член и накормлю его свиньям._ Sigh.. _Alright, so right after that I immediately texted Tsia to bail and call Sean, then deleted the thread; hopefully she got out in time.. I was heading for ex-fil myself when Mickey pushed me up against the building,_ “Thank you **so** very much- Emily, is it?. Thank you for finally giving me a reason. Truly, from the bottom of my heart-” _he had growled as he yanked my arm behind me and forced me forward._ “You don’t have a heart Mick- it’s one of the things we all love about you.” _I had tried -to appeal to his ego and de-escalate the situation from where I knew it was headed._ “Save it sweetheart, you know what comes next.” _he'd said in my ear with a wicked grin- drowning my senses with the rank smell of his foul cigarette smoke, cheap beer, and chewing tobacco._

 

_He briskly marched me by the arm down the strip past the other girls working and pimps keeping close watch towards the main building where “office” duties were taken care of. Basically Where they shoved the girls into filthy, cramped living quarters on the ground floors and the rich asshole pimps counted their money in the penthouses high above. I knew saying anything else to him would only make me look more guilty than I already was in his eyes, so I put on a careful facade of annoyance and inconvenience, and was careful to never show him any fear I may have felt. Escape was a fanciful wish, but a logistical impossibility; seeing as how there were dozens of other pimps set up in a grid around the strip for the very purpose of controlling girls and johns alike._

 

_I knew what was coming, every girl did. And it certainly wasn’t pretty. Once you were ruined from street work, they no longer gave any shits about how bad you looked after beatings- some stupid-rich sadistic fuck would buy you and you’d get more of the same from him until you died. Hopefully Tsia had bailed in time and Sean was working on a plan at this very moment to get my ass ex-filed outta' this hell-hole.. If not, gods, I don't even want to think of what they'd do to her to get to me.. I can take anything they throw at me, any and all torture tactics they could possibly come up with, I'd take it. But if they threatened Tsia, hurt her, or worse.. gods I truly don't know how long I could last. Which was not good- we were repeatedly told that relationships and even close friendships were highly discouraged in our unit because of the work we do- now it hits home more than ever. Shit. I mean come on, how can you put five agents together day in and day out, working missions and not expect comradery to surface at the_ very _least?! We’re not robots, no how much they may think so or want us to be. But I’m going to need all of my training for what comes next, that’s for sure._

_We had made it through the front door and off down a hall to where “business” was taken care of._ “Goodnight princess **Emily** , sleep well..” _Mick had whispered viciously next to my ear. Then as I turned towards him, all I remember seeing was his slick smirk before his brass knuckles connected with my left cheek bone- then it’s all black and bank until now. Where, ironically, it’s still black as Satan’s anus.. Not the time for wisecracks Prentiss, focus!_

  
  


_Alright, so the plan is to stay quiet and still until someone comes in- they might be listening in at this very moment. I can't give anything away; I can explain away what Mickey probably saw and heard simply enough, and I have to appear innocent and annoyed enough until then to play the part successfully._

  
  


Emily stood as still and strong as she could, but after several hours her sways turned into leaning, which in turn cut the cuffs deeper and deeper into her wrists. Her back and shoulders strained to support her leaning weight; her feet numb from the cold, concrete below. Her main concern was water; anything else could wait longer than she'd last without at least a little water. But nobody had come in to check on her, and if they were watching her it would have to be with a camera with night vision adaptations. She seriously doubted these losers had tech that advanced, which meant that they either had forgotten about her or wanted to make her sweat. Neither of which were good options. The best immediate actions would be to conserve energy, save strength, and stay calm. So she'd try her best to do so.

 

_Should I speak up; ask the sucking darkness what's going on and hope someone hears me? Would that help or hurt my situation? How do I want to play this..? What do they think they know? How can I play any kind of angle without someone in person to read to gauge the situation? If I want to stick to the innocent story, what would an “innocent” prostitute do/say in this kind of situation? If I want to try to spin that I'm a local cop and bluff an imminent raid, how would I claim a time when I don't even know if Tsia got out in time or if the team is working to get me out right now. Ugh, I guess I can't even begin to start an act until someone walks in here or makes contact._

  
  


…

…

…

 

They left her to stand there for seventy-one hours, but she was none the wiser as to the exact total length of time that transpired. All Prentiss knew was that she would periodically doze off only to jerk awake to even more excruciating pain in her wrists, shoulders, and back. She felt her blood flow down her arms whenever she jerked. The worst part was feeling the scabs break away from the cuffs again and again and again.. She knew it had to be her blood, since there was no way she'd be sweating in this chilled, slightly below room temperature holding area.

 

Hour 58: After so long without water, her strength was nearly fully spent merely trying to hold herself up to take the weight off her arms. She lacked the energy to even think, not that there was much left to think about anyways. The brunette had already gone over what she would do and how she would respond to **any** possible outside stimuli. Extensively. It was what she was trained to do: think up any and **every** possible outcome, then plan and prepare accordingly. Only, she could do nothing except try to stay awake until something happened, so her brain was stalled and no longer required energy, so she simply didn't think at all.

 

Hour 67: The mind-numbing, never ending darkness and silence converged on her both lulling her to sleep and threatening to send her into panic at the same time. Her rigid training did not allow her to let her brain wander and get sidetracked, so she simply shut it down- stripped functionality down to the basics: _breathe, stay awake, stay on your feet, keep your shoulders in their sockets_.

 

Hour 71: She never even registered a door quietly opening and closing, that's how zoned out she was. Not quite asleep, but nowhere near fully awake. For now.

 

“Wake-y wake-y, princess **Emily** ” Mick's patronizing voice whispered into her woefully unprepared ear. Prentiss gasped and blinked wide awake, jerking violently forward on her chains, tearing apart the wrist scabs she'd been carefully keeping in place and sending blood in rivulets down her arms. “Is someone ready to be honest with me yet? Or should I let you ponder for another day or so?” Mick's sickly sweet voice drolled. Prentiss could tell that he was in front of her now, and a few feet away at that- by the placement of his voice.

 

There was a lot of new rustling noises as Mick wasn't accustomed to the darkness. He was clearly feeling around for something. A click. Her eyelids slammed shut over ridiculously dilated pupils as she jerked her head behind her left arm against the literally blinding new source of light. She heard creaking as Mick likely sat himself down in an old, wooden chair or stool across from her, by the light. Slowly, painfully, she started to blink into her arm- still avoiding direct exposure. Seconds turned to minutes as she adjusted her eyes to tolerate the harsh light, un-pressing her face from her shoulder. She forced her brain to start functioning and thinking again- the adrenaline from her wake-up call more than sufficient to kick start the process. Alright _, I'm definitely in a basement, judging by the exposed pipes on the ceiling, cinder block walls, and the lack of windows. Only a basement could be this quiet so near to the busy city.. Wait, I was knocked out.. I could literally be anywhere- I have no time frame to work from here.. Okay, the floor is speckled gray concrete- typical foundation pour- but wait, there's a thick trail of rusted brown pools leading from around my feet sloping towards a drain grate about seven feet away. That's most definitely blood- for sure.. But how much of it could realistically be mine? Glancing slowly up my arms coated in my own dried blood to the rope constraining my wrists- adding drip factor- I'm estimating maybe less than one percent... That's not good. Whelp, I've got about sixty-two more ounces to lose until I'll probably pass out, and I bet they're gonna hit that mark.. Considering the amount of old blood here, draining people slowly is clearly_ _ **someone's**_ _hobby.. I just hope to god it isn't Mick's. We weren't given intel for this ring of traffickers that had them owning any buildings with basements, so the if the team is looking for me with that information, they'll never find me in time.. It's already been so long. How long, exactly..? Mental note: get Mick to tell me how long I've been tied up down here.._

 

“If you don't have anything to say to me, sweetheart, then I'll just leave you here and be on my merry way. Have fun dying of dehydration!” Mick snapped, clearly growing impatient with the lack of response.

 

Emily slowly brought her head back in between her arms to look Micky in the eyes. Giving him, his posture, and his tone a quick but careful assessment, she was still stalled on how she should play this situation. What if she played innocent convincingly and he no longer deemed her worth keeping alive? Given the evidence of massive blood loss on the floor, it looked like these people were very experienced with torture. Unsubs who torture, especially to this level of proficiency, are usually pragmatic and practical; they would very likely discard someone who has outlived usefulness in their eyes. On the other hand, if she tipped her hand too hard, they might get suspicious and kill her just on principle of her being a cop. If she didn't put forth a very good reason why they'd want to keep her alive, there was no doubt in her mind she'd be a goner long before her team could ever reach her. No, the key is in the gray area in between two extremes, as always. 

 

_Sigh, okay- here goes nothing.. "_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_ابن العاهرة سيموت موت مؤلم بطيء_

_**^ Son of a bitch will die a slow, painful death!** _

 

_Я вырежу его член и накормлю его свиньям._

_**^ I will cut his dick off and feed it to pigs!** _

 


End file.
